As I said last week — Democrats, you can have this old coot.Â He’s not only an arrogant and selfishÂ SOB, it sounds like he’s crazy now (or more crazy than usual).

“Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn’t want me as their candidate,” Mr. Specter said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But as a matter of principle, I’m becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats’ approach. And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research.”

Mr. Specter continued: “If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.”

So just to be clear, if we all went back in time (say, in a DeLorean) and pursued the Democrat healthcare agenda (which Specter thinks is like Nixon’s) — then Jack Kemp wouldn’t have died.

I’m not even sure what there is to say about this ranting.Â Except:Â I’ll be surprised if he is still the Senator from Pennsylvania after November 2010.

As an opponent of “Hate Crimes” legislation, I often cringe when I read how some who share this view attempt justify their opposition. Like the hysterical comments of gay marriage supporters, their arguments make it more difficult to convince others of the merits of their position.

On Friday, conservative blogger Ed Morrissey took Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx to task for calling it a “hoax” to name the Hate Crimes bill in the House for Matthew Shephard. He found her contention “absurd on two levels,” the second being:

. . . that even if one accepted that this particular case involved no animus against gays, undeniably people commit crimes based on that animus as well as a range of others. The animus exists, and can be seen in a variety of criminal and non-criminal acts. The question, which Foxx eclipsed with this sorry performance, is whether we want to start criminalizing thoughts as well as actions.

Just because Congresswoman Foxx made a bone-headed comment (for which she should apologize*) doesn’t mean that she was wrong to oppose this legislation. We need acknowledge that some people do target minorities for violence on account of their difference. And we need make sure that those who do so are punished accordingly. Just as we punish those who commit violent acts for another reasons.

Let’s make sure to punish the perpretators for the degree of violence of the crime, but not their thought process.

At the GayPatriot dinner last week with Thatcher Honoree Dr. Nigel Ashford, we discussed the challenges college students face in coming out. No, not about their sexuality. While that’s still not a walk in the park, those who do come out meet with a supportive University administration and campus environment.

What is tougher is coming out conservative. On colleges, they face a critical University administration and liberal campus environment where young liberals are taught (acculturated?) to deride those holding views at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy. Those who do come out very often do not have a social network to help ease the transition, so many remain closeted about their political views.

With President Obama and the Democrats working to limit the choices of the younger generation while burdening them with more debt that have all previous Administrations and Congresses combined, many more might move in the conservative direction. Until then, it’s up to those brave few souls to speak out and so lay the groundwork for renaissance of libertarian ideas on college campuses*.

It’s not just in colleges where conservatives feel isolated today. As our group noticed when we gathered last week, it felt great to be able to talk openly about our political views, without having to defend them from the attacks, accusations and insults to which we have been accustomed. Much as it must feel for a gay man or woman in rural America to find others like him or her at the bar in the nearest mid-sized town.

So, it seems, as Dr. Ashford put it, conservatives today often feel as isolated and alone in big liberal cities as gays used to feel in small towns and villages.

Watching a growing number of left-wing pundits and bloggers trip over themselves to join Perez Hilton in smearing Carrie Prejean, Miss California, for offering a position on gay marriage nearly identical to that of the Democratic President of the United States, we see yet again an interesting aspect of the gay marriage debate.

What does it say about them that they choose to define their opposition as haters?

Last fall, I received a good deal of e-mail from both sides of the Prop 8 campaign. In nearly every missive I received from the “Yes” said, the proponents of the measure were at pains to assure me they did not want to take away the state’s domestic partnership program. The language was straight forward. They did not attack. They merely, as did Carrie Prejean, defended the notion of marriage as an institution defined by gender difference.

By contrast, the e-mail from the “No” side was overwhelmingly hostile, attacking supporters of the proposition as mean-spirited. To be sure, not all the e-mails were hostile. Lesbian friends who had gotten married just talked about their relationships.

It struck me how in the Prejean-Hilton exchange and the ensuing hullabaloo, we saw a replaying of that very campaign.

Why must so many gay marriage advocates label their adversaries as haters? Don’t they even realize the irony that they are using hateful rhetoric to accuse others of hate?